Netflix will keep telling customers that ISPs are to blame for bad video.

Netflix said Monday it will not stop telling consumers that Internet service providers are to blame for poor streaming video.

Last week, Verizon sent a cease and desist letter to Netflix threatening a lawsuit unless Netflix immediately stops sending notices to customers (like the one at the top of this story) blaming Verizon for poor quality. Verizon also demanded a list of all customers who received such messages and evidence that each message was justified.

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"Failure to provide this information may lead us to pursue legal remedies, and Verizon reserves all rights in that regard," Verizon wrote.

Netflix General Counsel David Hyman sent the company's response today (PDF). Netflix is hedging, but only a little. The messages the company is sending to consumers are part of a "test" that's ending next week, but that doesn't mean Netflix's public relations campaign is over, Hyman wrote.

"The current transparency test to which your letter relates is scheduled to end June 16 and we are evaluating rolling it out more broadly," he wrote. "Regardless of this specific test, we will continue to work on ways to communicate network conditions to our consumers. We're also happy to work with you on ways to improve network transparency to our mutual customers."

Netflix's response did not include the list of customers to whom it has sent the messages or specific justification for each one, as Verizon demanded. When asked if Netflix is not complying with all of Verizon's demands, a Netflix spokesperson told Ars only that the "letter speaks for itself."

The letter criticized Verizon for not joining Netflix's Open Connect peering and caching program, which lets ISPs connect directly to Netflix or bring Netflix storage boxes into their own networks in order to improve quality.

"You have chosen not to participate in the Open Connect Program, but instead have allowed your network connection to Netflix to degrade until we agreed to pay for augmented interconnection," Hyman wrote. "We brought the data right to your doorstep...all you had to do was open your door."

While Netflix caved in to Verizon and agreed to pay for a direct connection to its network more than a month ago, it's not paying off for customers yet. Verizon hasn't established enough links with Netflix to improve quality and promises only that the upgrade will be done by the end of 2014.

In his letter to Verizon, Hyman wrote that Netflix's messages "merely let our customers know that the Verizon network is crowded. We have determined this by examining the difference between the speed at which the Verizon network handles Netflix traffic at peak versus non-peak times."

Verizon's cease and desist letter blamed Netflix for poor quality, saying that "Netflix has chosen to continue sending its traffic over these congested routes." The congested routes were mainly in the connections between Verizon and transit providers Cogent and Level 3. Netflix pays these companies to distribute its traffic, and traditionally they have exchanged traffic for free with Internet service providers. Verizon demanded payment to account for the fact that the companies were sending more traffic than they were receiving.

Hyman responded that it is "Verizon's responsibility to provide its customers with the service it has promised them... It is my understanding that Verizon actually upsells customers to higher speed packages based on improved access to video services, including Netflix. Verizon's unwillingness to augment its access ports to major Internet backbone providers is squarely Verizon's fault... To try to shift blame to us for performance issues arising from interconnection congestion is like blaming drivers on a bridge for traffic jams when you're the one who decided to leave three lanes closed during rush hour."

We've asked Verizon if it plans to file a lawsuit but haven't heard back yet.

UPDATE: Verizon did reply to our e-mail, but the company did not say whether it would file a lawsuit. A company spokesperson said only, "We look forward to working with Netflix to improve our mutual customers' enjoyment of Netflix."

When asked again if Verizon plans to file the lawsuit that it threatened in its cease and desist letter, the Verizon spokesperson said, "I'm not going to respond."

Of course Verizon won't sue. Any lawsuit opens them up to providing real network traffic data during discovery, and when it turns out they are at anything BUT capacity, the PR shit will hit the fan. Deservedly so.

"To try to shift blame to us for performance issues arising from interconnection congestion is like blaming drivers on a bridge for traffic jams when you're the one who decided to leave three lanes closed during rush hour."

Of course Verizon won't sue. Any lawsuit opens them up to providing real network traffic data during discovery, and when it turns out they are at anything BUT capacity, the PR shit will hit the fan. Deservedly so.

Oh they can, if they wanted to, look at the whole comcast deal, the "congestion" magically went away the moment the deal was signed, problem if VZW would still rather get Netflix's money ant STILL not do anything for their users because they don't care about them one nbit, they already have their money

Netflix should include an addendum in those messages for customers to contact their legislators to support net neutrality by calling their DC offices directly if they want ISPs to stop this type of behavior.

The truth is not a crime, but litigation isn't free. I suspect that one day we will live in a world where lawyers have become the de facto nobility with close to complete control over the non-lawyers merely due to the threat of bankrupting through litigation.

Hyman responded that it is "Verizon's responsibility to provide its customers with the service it has promised them... It is my understanding that Verizon actually upsells customers to higher speed packages based on improved access to video services, including Netflix. Verizon's unwillingness to augment its access ports to major Internet backbone providers is squarely Verizon's fault... To try to shift blame to us for performance issues arising from interconnection congestion is like blaming drivers on a bridge for traffic jams when you're the one who decided to leave three lanes closed during rush hour."

Of course, the problem is that it was Verizon's decision to close those lanes and keep them closed to extort money from Netflix. And it's the drivers (i.e. the Verizon customers) who suffer as a result.

Oh man, this is one of the rare instances I wish I was living in the USA just so I can subscribe to Verizon AND Netflix and then ask Netflix to send me congestion notices so I can sue Verizon for not delivering.

On a side note, when will Verizon users do something to help themselves? How about proving by using VPN that Netflix is intentionally throttled, recording the whole session and posting it to youtube? And then starting a class action? What are you wating for, people? This shouldn't be just Netflix's fight -- it's your fight too!

"You have chosen not to participate in the Open Connect Program, but instead have allowed your network connection to Netflix to degrade until we agreed to pay for augmented interconnection," Hyman wrote. "We brought the data right to your doorstep...all you had to do was open your door."

So, how is the precedence you set on buying your way to augmented speeds while hurting the net neutrality argument working out for you?

In a painful attempt to defend jerks like Verizon, Open Connect makes the ISP hold every video Netflix is distributing. There are no smarts to the scheme, so they have to host video that probably nobody will watch. A recent interview on Security Now revealed this.

Verizon should be forced into net neutrality by the FCC given that they own Red Box, a competing video streaming service. For some reason, I suspect red box gets to ride in an express lane forbidden to Netflix.

In a painful attempt to defend jerks like Verizon, Open Connect makes the ISP hold every video Netflix is distributing. There are no smarts to the scheme, so they have to host video that probably nobody will watch. A recent interview on Security Now revealed this.

Considering that all the data is housed on hardware owned by Netflix, Verizon is giving up literally nothing to host that video that nobody will watch.

It's not quite that clear cut, since whoever is hosting Netflix's hardware has to pay to power and cool that hardware. So far I haven't read anything that would make it truly cost-free for the entity hosting Netflix's hardware.

Seems to me not only is the cost minimal, but the competitive advantage of being able to sell the best connection to neftlx to would be customers would more than cover it.

In a painful attempt to defend jerks like Verizon, Open Connect makes the ISP hold every video Netflix is distributing. There are no smarts to the scheme, so they have to host video that probably nobody will watch. A recent interview on Security Now revealed this.

Considering that all the data is housed on hardware owned by Netflix, Verizon is giving up literally nothing to host that video that nobody will watch.

It's not quite that clear cut, since whoever is hosting Netflix's hardware has to pay to power and cool that hardware. So far I haven't read anything that would make it truly cost-free for the entity hosting Netflix's hardware.